World Marathon Majors Year Four

The race directors grade themselves and eye the future of the series

In 2006, five of the world's top marathons -- Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York -- entered an unprecedented cooperative agreement to annually award $500,000 to the top male and female marathoner in their races over the preceding two years.

Whether or not the resultant World Marathon Majors has been successful depends, as in much of life, on one's expectations. To get an update from the races' perspective, we sat down after a presentation at the Running USA conference in San Diego in February with two of the five race directors -- Guy Morse from Boston and Carey Pinkowski from Chicago -- and Richard Finn, Director of Communications for the New York Road Runners. We then followed up on the phone with Mary Wittenberg, race director of New York, who missed the conference due to illness.

Overall, the directors made it clear that they believe the experiment is working. Morse opened, "I'm proud to say, this series, three years on now, is really starting to take off ." He made clear, however, what their scope and expectations are: "We are not the federation. We're not here to do the federation's work. We're here to make the sport more exciting, the sport better, to have more media focused on the event. We've had deliberate, slow growth these past few years. This is a long-distance event itself, it's not a sprint. We're taking deliberate steps to make it better."

From the beginning, getting the media to pay more attention has been a goal, not so much in the local markets, where each marathon gets its due in its season, but globally, and throughout the year. From the directors' perspective, a major indicator that this is happening comes in the form of Universal Sports network committing to cover the Majors on the Web and in an increasing number of TV outlets. Universal Sports, represented in San Diego, stated that the five webcasts of the WMM races had the most traffic of any throughout the year.

In terms of other media, a search reveals that the WMM does provide a context for a few stories "out of season" (a piece in the Boston Globe leading into New York, for example) and it adds another story on race day beyond who won the specific race. But stories outside of the spring and fall race weeks are pretty scarce. What has yet to happen much (outside of running geek media like Running Times) is what Finn notes as one of the series goals, that the public be "aware of the WMM, know our stars. Not as much knowing about us, but about the stars. What Paula does in London, what Ryan and Kara do -- the athletes are the stories, we are the platform."

On this goal, Morse, says, "Grading ourselves, I'd say we probably do a B-in that category. There is a lot more we can be doing. We need to partner more with the media, educate our media. We need to get better."

One problem with the nature of the sport is that much of the action occurs off-screen -- the months of training building to the single-day showdown. Finn commented, "Marathoners are like fighters. They can only fight a championship match once or twice a year. We [the PR guys] have explored, and will continue to explore, media days, like they do in fight camps. But our athletes, rather than being in the Catskills, or Colorado, are in the mountains of Kenya. It's kind of tough to make a media day, get journalists to them."

The Majors have, however, worked to make their athletes more accessible during race week. Says Finn, "We're almost turning the whole sport a little bit around with what we want those athletes to do -- they used to show up, run, and leave. We're not allowing that any more."

Pinkowski adds, "It's just not enough to ask them to go cracking off 4:45 pace as long as they possibly can. To be competitive on a broader scale, we have to kind of engage them -- really have to show their personality, and their family, what they do and how they got there."

The race directors believe that the group has a better chance of doing this than individual events. Says Morse, "It's the continuity. We're talking about Chicago and New York in Boston." Pinkowski adds, "It connects, on a broader base, the five events. It works, because we're talking about it. It helps with the story."

One has to question, however, if there is yet a continuing story worthy of attention apart from the races themselves. The timing of the events, tightly grouped together in the spring and fall, the point system, which is heavily weighted toward winners, and the financial realities and organizational structure of each race, all conspire to make the series less important than the individual marathons. Very rarely have two or more points leaders, with their fate in their own hands, faced off in a deciding race. Thus, rather than the feeling of a championship series, it has been a summation of points, and an addendum award for two runners who were consistently good in these races. And, for the most part, the race directors are OK with that.
When asked if the incentive for the series victory, $500,000, is enough to affect how an athlete chooses his or her races, Wittenberg admits, "That is the threshold question-- the crux of the issue. If we were really committed to building the series, the end goal would have to be more important than the individual events." But, she says, the reality is that they are individually owned and managed events, and that, "We are not trying to drive behavior, we are trying to create an alliance."

"That's an added value piece to the event," Pinkowski says about the WMM prize, but points out, "The race is designed, recruited for the specific Chicago race." Indeed, Pinkowski says, "We're partners, but we're fierce competitors when it comes to athletes. I want to have the best competitors in Chicago; Mary wants the best in New York." Morse agrees that the series doesn't affect athlete selection: "I don't think it [WMM] is changing whom we're choosing. It is just getting the best athletes."

Morse says, regarding the WMM purse, "Is it enough? How much is enough? The marketplace continues to change, there seems to be pressure to go higher and higher. Right now, we're funding it ourselves. There is an acknowledgement, the money needs to get better."

Finn adds, "When the Super Bowl started, no one thought that winning the Super Bowl was a big deal. Twenty years from now, we'll look back at these first champions. Hopefully in a few years, the champions will be making a lot more money. It's a growing process. We have a group who is looking very carefully at money and everything."

SHARING LESSONS/ WORKING ON STRATEGY

This reality of a group, working together on joint issues, seems to be the key aspect of the relationship so far. Pinkowski points out how the association allowed Chicago to share with the others what they learned in the heat of 2007. "It doesn't do any good for us to capture that -- what we learned, sometimes learned the hard way. It is important for us to disseminate that to other events."

Finn says, in terms of linking media to stars throughout the year, "This is where we're working together as a group. We have the resources now to go ahead and help with that. I can do conference calls now from London back to the States. That is something we would never have thought about doing four or five years ago."

This extends to the issues related to the current situation in the financial industry, which includes primary sponsors for each of the U. S. races. While expressing confidence that the support is firm, all the directors admit that there will be challenges. Pinkowski says, "One of the great things about the WMM is that we can talk to each other. I mean we do. That's been a great benefit. It is kind of a support base. I can call Mary at 11 o'clock at night. There's a refreshing piece of this. We're all on the same challenges."

So, what was, less than five years ago, a competing set of fiefdoms sealed off from each other and warring over every piece of turf, is now an association of city-states that still compete, but also communicate and cooperate, and stand somewhat together amid the countries of sports. It's not a country, with goals, rewards and championships larger than the individual components, but it is a big step in the sport.

And if you feel that the WMM isn't important enough yet for you to care about? The directors advise a wait-and-see approach. Every question regarding elements that might make the series more robust, from adjusting points to adding additional members for a broader geography and schedule, gets the same response: essentially, "We're evaluating, we're letting the current setup play out, we're talking about it." Morse says, "If we see something that needs to be changed, we'll do it. Nothing is cast in stone." Finn adds, "There have been leagues in existence for hundreds of years, and they're still making adjustments." And Morse concludes, "This is clearly a work in progress."